exercise the supreme Command without that Clemency and Moderation which he did, he had rather chosen to rule than to obey. So that _Cæsar_ was faulty not so much in seizing upon the Sovereignty, which was become in a manner necessary, as in not re-establishing the Commonwealth, by restoring the _Agrarian_ and the Rotation of Magistracies, after he had got absolute and uncontroulable Power. And if _Cæsar_ had seiz’d upon the Sovereignty only with a View of re-establishing Liberty, he had surpass’d all Mortals in Godlike Goodness as much as he did in the rest of his astonishing Qualities. I must confess, I do not remember that we have any Authority from the _Roman_ Historians which may induce us to believe that _Cæsar_ had any such Design. Nor if he had had any such View, could he, who was the most secret, the most prudent, and the most discerning of Men, have discover’d it before his _Parthian_ Expedition was over, for fear of utterly disobliging his Veterans. And _Cæsar_ believ’d that Expedition necessary for the Honour and Interest of the State, and for his own Glory. But of this we may be sure, that two of the most discerning of all the _Romans_, and who had the deepest Insight into the Soul of _Cæsar_, _Sallust_ and _Cicero_, were not without Hopes that _Cæsar_ would really re-establish Liberty, or else they would not have attack’d him upon it; the one in his Oration for _Marcus Marcellus_, the other in the Second Part of that little Treatise _De Republica ordinanda_, which is address’d to _Cæsar_. _Hæc igitur tibi reliqua pars, says Cicero, Hic restat Actus, in hoc elaborandum est, ut Rempublicam constituas, eaque tu in primis composita, summa Tranquillitate & otio perfruare. Cicero_ therefore was not without Hope that _Cæsar_ would re-establish the Commonwealth; and any one who attentively peruses that Oration of _Cicero_, will find that that Hope was reasonably grounded upon his knowledge of the great Qualities of _Cæsar_, his Clemency, his Beneficence, his admirable Discernment; and that avoidless Ruine in which the whole Empire would be soon involv’d, if _Cæsar_ did not effect this. _Sallust_ urges it still more home to him and with greater vehemence; he has recourse to every Motive that may be thought to be powerful over so great a Soul. He exhorts him by the Memory of his matchless Conquests, not to suffer the invincible Empire of the _Roman_ People to be devour’d by Time, or to be torn in pieces by Discord; one of which would soon and infallibly happen, if Liberty was not restor’d.